Never to be Forgotten
by HomestuckHero
Summary: Never would you forget he who saved your life, he who heard your story, he who shared your scar, he who knew your secret. And you would never forget how you ruined his life. He has every right to forget you, you think- but that wouldn't stop you from saving him. Sufferer/Psiioniic, angsty, fluff, friendship, maybe redrom.
1. The Boy in the Forest

Your name isn't important at the moment, because currently, all of the blood in your body is rushing to your head.

All you had done was go exploring. You had waited until your custodian had fallen asleep- she worried far too much for you to stray too far from her while she was awake- and had snuck from the makeshift camp the two of you had set up to rest in. The camp was surrounded by woodlands, and you had been eager to check it out.

Who would've guessed you would end up suspended a good 30 feet above the ground, upside down, the tree vines that trap you the only thing keeping you from falling?

You squirm in your binding; it has you stuck in a rather uncomfortable position, one arm bound close to your chest, the other pulled awkwardly behind your back. Your legs aren't much better, crossed at the knee and bound together. You're fairly certain your fingers and toes have fallen asleep from the restricted blood flow.

Alright, options: You could always thrash your way out. However, you're a bit worried about the green tendril snaked precariously around your neck. Thrash too hard and your lower body would fall, effectively hanging yourself in your struggle to get free, and you would really rather not die at the tender age of five sweeps. You could cut your way out. You have your sickles in your sylladex, and right now, they'd come in very handy. Alas, the ground was a long way down, and you don't feel like finding out the hard way if a 30-foot fall is fatal. You could climb your way out. Climb up the vines until the tension in them lessens, and then simply shrug them off. But seeing as your hands remain bound by those very vines, climbing is an impossibility. You could call for your custodian, but you know that she's nowhere within your screaming radius, impressive as it is.

Effectively, you're stuck.

You let out a heavy sigh. This is all your fault. All of it. You should never have left the camp. The Dolorosa had warned you. She had told you not to go off on your own. But you didn't listen. You didn't listen, and now curiosity was going to kill the crab. Gog, what if she wakes up? She was going to be so worried! And what if you're dead by the time she finds you? You're absolutely horrible, how could you do that to her? You had just wanted to see the woods! She never lets you see the woods! She never lets you go _anywhere_ without her! And you disrespected her by going out alone anyway. Maybe you _deserve_ to die-

"Hey."

The word snaps you out of your internal monologue. You look around for the source of it, and your eyes rest on an- albeit upside down- image of a boy below you.

"What're you doing?" he asks.

From where you're standing- well, _hanging_- you can't make out much about him. All you can tell is his gender and a rough estimate of his age- and those things were more conclusions you came to from his voice than they were observations you made from his appearance.

"Oh, y'know...hanging out." you answer. He's looking at you quizzically and you give him a sheepish look in return. You're reluctant to admit to the stranger that you'd gotten yourself into a spot of trouble.

"Tho I thee," he begins, and you tilt your head a bit. He speaks with a lisp, though you can still understand him. He looks as if he's mulling your words over, before giving you a two-fingered salute and a grin. "Well, don't let me interrupt you." With that, he turns and keeps walking.

"Wait!" you yell to him without thinking, and he stops in his tracks, one leg still outstretched as if to take another step. He turns on his heel and looks up at you again.

"Yeth~?" You can hear the smirk in his voice and you sigh dejectedly.

"I'm...kind of stuck. Could you give me a hand?" You half expect him to turn away and leave you there, but to your surprise he just pauses. His expression has flattened from a smirk to one of confusion and hesitation.

"Hey, wriggler, jutht who exactly _are_ you?"

"Huh?" The question catches you off guard, but you quickly recover, "Oh, I'm-"

"Thignleth."

...Fuck. You swallow thickly and nod slowly.

"Yeah...I'm signless."

You're the only wriggler in the history of Alternia to be born without a sign. You aren't normal. You suppose him noticing your lack of a sign is the lesser of the two secrets he could discover, but now he's _sure_ to leave you there.

He surprises you.

"Tho, what'th your thtory, thignleth?"

Instead of leaving, he stays put, and the look on his face is no longer hesitant, but almost...curious.

Gog, you've never been more relieved in your life.

"I'll tell you, but...could you get me down first? I feel like I'm going to pass out..." You certainly can't pass out now; you've met someone interesting!

He nods in response. "Alright, thtay put."

"Because I _really_ have a choice, don't I?" You say sarcastically, but there's no malice behind the statement at all. He just snickers.

You watch as he climbs the tree, eventually disappearing from your line of sight. You feel a slight shift vibrate down the vines, and you take that as meaning he's reached them. You smile a bit; finally, you can get down safely! Or so you think, until...

_Snap_

You feel the tension in the vines lessen around you, and your breath hitches in your throat. You strain your neck to look up at him. He's standing, situated on a branch above you, a knife in his hands.

"W-what're you doing?" You ask in a tone that was borderline panicked.

_Snap snap_

The tension lessens further._  
_

He doesn't look at you.

"I'm cutting the vineth. When you can move your handth, grab the vineth I haven't cut and climb onto a branch, then climb down the tree. It'th thimple."

It was simple, in theory, but nothing was ever that simple. You wiggle and writhe in your binds, and even though they've considerably loosened, you're still tangled in them. You groan loudly; you were getting nowhere with this!

Not seconds after that thought crosses your mind, you _are_ getting somewhere; you're plummeting.

**_A/N: _****_This chapter was initally longer, but I ran out of time. ^^; Just wanted to get this up. Call it a teaser. Reviews on it are welcome, because I have a long plotline already planned out, but I suck with writing and if no one likes it I might just delete it._**


	2. Scars and Secrets

If anyone before that moment had told you that time slowed down while falling, you wouldn't have believed them. Oh, how wrong you would have been.

You hear two screams; one is your own, the other you assume to belong to the boy in the branches above you. You manage to twist yourself just enough to look up at him- he's crouching on the branch, a hand outstretched to you. You reach out in return, your hand narrowly brushing against his. For a brief moment, you almost believe you've been saved, but before the relief can still the frenzied beating of your vascular pump, the feeling of his skin beneath your fingers disappears, and you're promptly brought back to the reality of being doomed to hit the ground.

You can only imagine how horrified you must look, eyes wide and limbs flailing in anxious anticipation of the inevitable. Your think pan is screaming at you not to look at the ground, but you can't help but do just that; the ground is quickly approaching below you. Your breath hitches, your eyes screwing shut and arms crossing as if to save yourself from impact.

Needless to say, you're surprised when instead of feeling the harsh embrace of the ground below, something jerks you to a sudden stop from behind.

Slowly, your clenched eyes relax and flutter open, taking in exactly what position you were in, your breathing still labored as you come to realize the immediate danger is over. You obviously hadn't hit the ground; you were hovering about three feet above it. You pull your arms away from yourself, and immediately, you're awe stricken by the red and blue aura that enveloped you. That must have been what saved you, but where had it come from? An aura like this was only made by-

As a realization hits you, you look up in surprise, quickly spotting the boy in the branches above you. He's still crouched on the branch, arm still extended as it had been to grab you, fingers now spread and stiff as if straining. You can see the steady sparks of the same red and blue energy seeping from his hand and the corners of his eyes.

"You're a psionic," You say breathlessly, pulse not yet under control. You don't miss how his expression changes from one of shock to one of anxiousness as he suddenly pulls his hand back, the energy disappearing from both it and your body. "Wha-" You fall the last few feet, landing flat on the ground below you with a loud 'oof!'. When you gather your bearings enough to stand, you look back at the branches. The boy was nowhere to be found. It takes you a few looks around to find him again; he had hustled out of the tree and was now walking quickly down a dirt path, head lowered and hands dug into the pockets of his pants.

You stare at his retreating figure. "Hey, psionic," You call after him, but as soon as you do so, he takes off in a sprint. Eyebrows disappearing into your hairline, you give chase.

To his credit, the boy was a pretty fast runner, though not very agile in his panicked state. The snapped tree limbs and gnarled vines along the ground as you followed him down paths obviously less traveled trip him up time and again, but he manages to stay on his feet. You weren't doing much better, a misplaced step making you fall every now and then, but by the time the path levels out and into a clearing- a naturally formed culdesac of trees closing around a lake, filled by a waterfall's steady flow- you've gained ground on him.

Without a second thought, you lunge at him. He tries to fight you, but he's fatigued from running, and not a minute later he's beneath you, your legs straddling his, your hands pinning his shoulders to the ground. You stare at each other, your shallow panting being the only thing filling the silence between you.

Now that you're both still, you recall that this is the first good look you've gotten at him. His clothes are plain enough, albeit dirty from the run; a pair of black jeans and a yellow hoodie. You look around for his sign, and find it around his neck, a small Gemini symbol hanging from a gold chain. His dark gray lips are parted, revealing two pairs of oversized incisors- the cause of his lisp, you assume. His black hair is cut short, flared out in the middle, and tousled from the run.

But his eyes- one a deep blue, the other a bright red, and both concealing a slightly darker iris of the same color- were by far the most compelling thing about him.

You keep your eyes on his, only speaking when you trust your voice again. "Why'd you run from me?"

"Why'd you follow me?" He retorted automatically. The rise and fall of his chest had steadied, but his voice still held a bit of breathlessness, and an undertone of aggravation.

You match his annoyed tone with one of your own. "Because you saved my life!"

He breaks eye contact with you, turning his head to the side, but you continue to glower down at his profile. "Yeah, I did, and what a mithtake that wath."

"If it was such a mistake, then why'd you do it in the first place?" You raise your hands from his shoulders, opting to cross your arms instead. "Are all psionics assholes like you?"

He flinches slightly. "Thtop calling me that!" His voice came out as a harsh whisper that had nothing to do with your weight on him.

You raise an eyebrow. "What, psionic?"

He flinches again. "Yeth, that!" He struggles beneath you again, and you fall backwards, off of him completely. He's quickly back on his feet and walking away from you once more.

You just sit there on the groud, watching his back as he leaves. "I don't have anything else to call you," You say with an almost saddened undertone.

To your surprise, he stops.

"Therian." He doesn't turn to look at you.

He speaks so softly, you can't make out what he says. You get to your feet. "Excuse me?"

"Therian," He repeats. He finally turns around, head bowed at first, but he soon lifts his head to meet your eyes. "you can call me Therian."

So you finally had a name to put to his face. Serian.

Looking him over and taking a step forward, cautiously, as if he'd bolt again if you weren't careful, you hold a hand out to him.

"Nice to meet you, Serian," You test the name on your tongue, and find it one worth memorizing. "I'm Klimek."

He stares between your face and outstretched hand before meeting you the rest of the way, putting his hand in yours and shaking it. "Likewithe, Klimek." He relinquishes your hand, and goes to sit cross-legged at the edge of the lake. You watch him do so, not sure what he expected you to do, but it becomes clear when he pats the ground to his right. Getting the idea, you take a seat beside him. The two of you sit in a comfortable lapse, for how long you aren't sure, the sound of the waterfall being the only thing thing breaking the silence between you until he speaks up. "Lithten..." You turn your head to look at him, but find him staring at his reflection in the water. You do the same to your own reflection as he continues. "I need you to keep quiet about what I did."

You send him a quizzical look out of the corner of your eye before turning to face him completely. "Why is it that you want me to keep quiet about what you did? Whether you regret it or not, you saved my life- that gives you instant hero status, as far as I'm concerned."

"I'm not talking about how I thaved your life, Klimek," He lifts his head to look at you wearily before looking back into the water, as if he saw all the world had to offer in its' clear depths. "I'm talking about my powerth. I don't regret thaving you, I regret how I did it."

The thought of this just puzzled you further. "But why? Your powers are a talent, a gift- why would you hide them?"

That gets him to look up at you again. He gives you another onceover before meeting your eyes. "If any normal troll thaid that to me, I would think they were pan-damaged. But theeing ath you're a troll without a thign, you don't fall into the category of normal." You aren't sure whether or not to be offended, but you don't have much time to think about it before he's moving on. "Trollth with pthionic powerth are very powerful- they can do jutht about anything with a thought and a flick of their writht." You nod, just to show you're keeping up, "Thothe powerth altho make them very valuable workerth, for both mental and menial labor. Henthe, there's a high demand for pthionic trollth in the thlave trade. Any troll found to have pthionikth at their dithpothal can be turned into the thlave collectorth for a reward."

Your face twists into a mixed expression of horror and disgust. How could this be possible? "So you could be sold into slavery for the gift you have...? That can't be right, that's- that's-!" You struggle to find the right words.

"Horrible, awful, fucked up, unfair?" He offers, and all you can do is nod; if you opened your mouth, you felt like you'd scream. He nods in agreement. "I know, but that'th how it ith."

"Well that isn't how it should be." You cross your arms tightly over your chest and settle for glaring coldly into your lap.

"Yeah, but that's how it _ith_," He repeats, "regardleth of if I like it or not. My hive is in a village a half a mile away," He points to a path leading from the clearing that you hadn't noticed before, "and I have no doubt in my mind that if any of the otherth knew, they'd turn me in in an inthtant."

"What reason would they have for doing that? Would some extra money really be a fair exchange for the knowledge that they had just doomed someone to a life no one deserves to live?" Your fists clench in the fabric of your cloak, and stay there until you feel his hand on your shoulder.

"Do me a favor and relakth, would ya? I know it suckth, but there'th no changing it, and no good ever cometh from being openly defiant of it." His hand drops from your shoulder and he sighs. "But of courthe, I don't know why the hell I'm bothering to tell you thith. For all I know, you could jutht ath eathily go and collect the reward yourthelf."

That sentence makes all the anger melt out of you, replaced by shock, and maybe a twang of hurt. You look at him with furrowed brows. "Do you really think I would do that to you?"

"I wouldn't put it patht you." He shrugs, "Theeing ath I jutht now met you, how am i thuppothed to know you wouldn't? I've kept it a thecret for all my life, I can't let you meth it up."

You think about that for a moment. He'd kept this secret all his life. Did that mean he'd been alone his entire life? Was he hiding from the world like you were? "You just saved my life, Serian! Don't you think I owe you that much?"

He just shrugs again. "Not all trollth are rethpektable enough to feel a thenthe of "owing" anything, let alone to a yellowblooded freak like me."

The word "freak" twists your knife. You want- no, need to think of a way to make him trust you.

And then it hits you.

"Serian, can I see your knife? Y'know, the one you were using to cut the vines?" You hold your hand out expectantly.

He blinks; looks like you caught him off guard, but he fishes in his pocket and pulls out the sheathed knife anyway. You can feel his eyes on you as you flip the knife up out of its sheath. "What do you plan on doing with that?" There's no fear in his voice, but the confusion is obvious.

"I'm giving an eye for an eye," You say, sparing a glance up at him before putting the knife over the palm of your left hand. "or in this case, a secret for a secret." You slice a neat little x into your palm, letting your blood run down your arm freely. You hold your palm up for his wide eyes to take in. "I know you don't think I understand, but I can promise you, I do. See for yourself; I'm a freak, too." You hand the knife back to him. "My lusus and I have been hiding from the world's eye ever since she rescued me from the brooding caverns. My blood isn't on the hemospectrum- I'm a mutant. The only one. It's never mattered much to me, I never understood how this blood made me different from any other troll, but whether I liked it or not, it did in the minds of everyone else. But my blood color doesn't make me any less of a troll, and neither do your powers. It's just as demeaning for you to be made a slave for your powers as it would be for me to get killed for my blood. It's as if they're saying we've given up our right to live our lives for the gifts we have, and that will never be fair in my eyes."

You watch him carefully for his reactions to your little spiel, shock and surprise being high contenders on the list of emotions playing over his features.

That same shock and surprise finds its way onto your face as you watch him do the same thing to his palm as you had done to yours.

"What the hell are you _doing_?" There's some horror sinking into your expression when you see the sickly yellow of his blood leak from the x in his palm. You look between his bleeding palm and his face, though he's staring down at the bleeding hand in his lap.

"I don't want to forget."

You blink, quirking a brow at him. "Pardon?"

"I don't want to forget." He looks up at you, and despite the light smile resting on his features, there are pricks of yellow blooming at the corners of his eyes. "I don't want to forget that there'th thomeone like me on Alternia. I don't want to forget that there'th thomeone like _you_."

Your eyes widen only for a moment, before they soften, a smile gracing your own lips. "We already know each other's secrets, might as well make one more. Everything that happened here- your powers and my blood- will _stay_ here, between the two of us. I promise I'll never tell, if you'll do the same." Your smile widens, and you hold out your bloodied hand. "Deal?"

He looks between your hand and your smile, before smiling himself- one of the most honest you had ever seen, even touching those eyes you were so compelled by- and shaking your hand with his own.

"Deal."

**_Wow, this is long overdue. Thank you all for being patient while I got my hectic life in somewhat order! And also thank you to all those who favorited, alerted, or reviewed, I really appreciate it! For the record, this isn't the end, though the next chapter will be fluffy and sadstucky._**

**_Dedicated to my friend Andy who's been waiting longer than any of you for this and has been so awesome, listening to me brainstorm about plots. Love you bro!_**

**_EDIT: Oh, and before I forget! Someone inquired about if I took fic requests. It's not something that had ever occurred to me to do before, but I'd be more than willing to try! You can message me here or send me an ask via my tumblr, beep-beep-fucking-meow. Thanks!_**


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